Free Quatrain by Sharon Shinn Page B

say I agree with all of Raphael’s policies, but Jovah’s bones! The man has a voice,” said Joseph.
    I looked up sharply at that. “The Archangel is here in Laban?” I said. “He wasn’t among the angels that I saw.”
    “I believe they were performing at several venues,” Hope answered.
    I glanced at Sheba, but she and Hara were busy teasing Hope’s older son, using one of their own combs to style his hair in a different fashion and laughing immoderately at the results. “I wonder if he might have news of Neri,” I said in a low voice.
    “Who—oh, the girl from your farm,” Hope said. “Well, I don’t know that I would have the courage to approach him to ask.”
    “No,” I said. “I’m certain I don’t.”
    I was not surprised when, at the end of the meal, Sheba turned to me and prettily asked if she could go to the dance that had been scheduled for the evening. I had seen the raw wood dance floor being laid and sanded in the center of town; I had been certain Sheba would want to attend.
    “Please say yes, Aunt Salome,” she said. She only called me aunt when she wanted to melt my heart. “I promise I won’t talk to anyone I don’t know.”
    “I’ll go with her, and I won’t let her out of my sight,” David spoke up.
    “We’ll watch out for her,” said Hope’s older son. He glanced at Hara. “For all our girls,” he added.
    I wasn’t too concerned about the possibilities for trouble at the dance, to tell the truth. Angels’ wings made it so difficult for them to participate in such an activity that they rarely attempted it, and Raphael always avoided any pastime that might make him look ridiculous. In fact, Sheba would probably be far safer on the dance floor tonight than in almost any other location in Laban.
    “Well, I will come with you for at least a little while,” I said, as if allowing myself to be convinced. “I will see how respectable this crowd is. But you must come back to the inn with me if I don’t like how people are behaving.”
    “I will.”
    “And in any case, you must be back in our room by midnight.”
    “I will be, I promise.”
    Hope’s husband was already pulling out his money. “Then let’s pay our bill and go,” he said.

    As I expected, the energy level at the makeshift outdoor dance arena was very high and the average age of the couples on the floor was about nineteen. The music—provided by a quartet of fiddlers and flautists so good they had to be from Luminaux—was exuberant, and the mood was infectiously happy.
    “Even I would be tempted to go out there, if someone would be willing to have such an old bag as a partner,” Hope murmured to me.
    David instantly offered his arm. “You could dance with me,” he said.
    Hope laughed, charmed and delighted. I smiled. It was for just such easy courtesies that I found David so likable.
    “Then let’s dance,” Hope said.
    Hara and Sheba quickly paired up with the Danfrees boys, and I was left standing beside Joseph.
    “I hope you aren’t too disappointed,” he said. “But ever since I broke my foot five years ago, I find it painful to dance. Not that I was ever too interested in it before,” he added.
    “Not disappointed at all,” I said. “I’d rather watch.”
    I stayed about an hour, long enough to see Sheba rotate through four partners, all of them young men that I knew. Even the many strangers on the floor did not alarm me, for they all looked like hardworking farm boys happy to be away from the fields for a night and eager to make a good impression on local girls. I saw a few Edori in the crowd, as brightly dressed and lighthearted as any of the farmhands, but I had no objection to Edori, either. They were wanderers—a little feckless, a touch irresponsible—but generally peaceable and honest people, and I would never expect them to offer harm to a stranger.
    There were no Jansai at the dance. And no angels. No one I would view with suspicion or alarm.
    Once Hope and I were